Telephone Tag
by Nynaeve506
Summary: Now that they weren't constantly putting their lives on the line, it was supposed to be easier, not harder, to connect. Also, it didn't help that all Sam had for dinner was a Healthy Choice frozen meal. Set between S.8-S.9


_A/N: Former readers from here may have noticed most of my stories have disappeared. They are all publicly available on "archive of our own dot org (slash) users (slash) Nynaeve" (remove the spaces). I don't know if I'll be as faithful updating here, but I'm putting up some of my T or lower rated stories and just recommend you check my complete collection on AO3. Peace out._

_Original Pub Date: 8/13/2012_

_A/N2: Written for the prompt "telephone" at the LJ writing comm, writerverse. Thanks to SaraBahama for beta'ing :) This is kind of fluffier than my usual fare._

Sam bit her lip and gave a sideways glance to her cell phone as she waited for her microwave to finish nuking her Healthy Choice lasagna. She was less than excited about it; the noodles were usually too rubbery and the bland sauce was barely palatable. Her apartment's kitchen was too tiny to do any real cooking, or so she told herself, despite the fact that she'd never been much for the culinary arts. Maybe if she had been, she wouldn't have gained five pounds in the first month of her assignment at R&D. When she saw the scale number rise up by another half pound the other morning, it felt like reality had smacked her in the forehead with a two by four. Not only was she on the wrong side of 35, but she also didn't have the benefit of Jaffa chasing her to the Stargate to help keep the weight off her hips. The frozen dinners had promised 'new and improved' flavors; in retrospect, Sam didn't really want to know what they used to taste like.

Idly she tapped her fork against the counter and forced herself to ignore her phone, which was failing to ring. It wasn't that Jack hadn't called, or that she hadn't called him, instead it was that they hadn't actually managed to connect to each other. Jack in DC and her at Area 51 was supposed to make things easier. As it turned out, the time difference and their respective responsibilities worked to conspire against them and she'd had moments where she wondered if maybe they'd waited too long for them to have any kind of real relationship. Such thoughts were usually followed by an inner declaration that the universe owed her, for crying out loud. She'd saved its ass at least a dozen times; Teal'c had the exact count and it was definitely in the double digits. The microwave signaled that it was done and she yanked open the door.

"This is really pathetic," Sam muttered, gingerly touching the congealed mass inside the black plastic tray with her index finger. The edges were bubbling but the center was still cold. Damn. Pizza would have been simpler although stopping at one slice was beyond her capabilities after three days of low calorie meals. She wiped her finger on her jeans and reached to pick up her phone. She could call Daniel. Or Cassie. Or Jack (again). Suddenly her phone lit up. Pushing the green button she answered. "It's about damn time."

"Well hello to you too," Jack greeted. He clearly found her irritation at the galaxy amusing and Sam decided the fault lay with the makers of Healthy Choice. Screw the cure for cancer, she wanted a low-fat meal that actually tasted decent and didn't require all that much effort.

"Sorry it's just…" She wrinkled her nose at her tepid food before closing the microwave door. "It's just that I'm…"

"Horny?" he interjected with a hopeful rise in his tone.

Sam rolled her eyes as she punched in another two minutes on the keypad. "Not what I was going to say."

"But you were thinking it."

"No, I was going to say hungry." Sam couldn't help but smile. They had a vacation planned for some time in the next three months if they could manage to get their schedules to correspond. After trying to connect for a plain, old-fashioned phone conversation though, she was less than optimistic about their odds for a fishing trip.

"That's even more disappointing, unless of course you meant for…"

"If you'd seen my dinners for the last week, you would know, without a doubt, that I'm not talking about sex," Sam retorted. Maybe if she swore to get up and go running at five in the morning she could splurge on a small pizza. She'd even make it a veggie pizza, no pepperoni. Of course, Jack would call that a travesty to pizzas everywhere, but he wasn't around to comment on it. The idea of gooey cheese was making her salivate.

"Hey, don't act like you aren't sending reports encoded with subliminal messages," Jack countered. "I had to read that last one about nocturnal emissions…alone."

She snorted in laughter. "_Neutrino _emissions, you mean."

"That's what it said, but you and I both know it was a double entendre."

"Since when do you read my reports anyway?" she tossed back.

"Since you started leaving dirty messages in them."

"Those reports are read by at least a dozen scientists, I'm not putting dirty messages in them because that would make meetings awkward." Sam started rummaging around in her junk drawer. She was certain she'd shoved an advertisement for Domino's in there at some point recently. Ordering online would be faster, but she wasn't certain that her willpower could withstand pictures of cheesy breadsticks. Her stomach growled.

Jack seemed momentarily distracted and there was jingling in the background. He must have been on his way back from the office which meant he had stayed at work really late. Another beat passed and he was back with her. "Good point. There aren't a lot of hot blondes who get turned on by math equations."

"Turned on isn't the word I would use," she replied, pulling out the elusive advertisement. "Although, when you talk about magnets, something inside me does go aflutter."

"Now don't go getting all sentimental on me, Carter," Jack groused. "If you would pick up your phone when I call, I wouldn't have to read so much into those R&D reports. I'm a general you know."

"That's the rumor on the street."

The microwave stopped again and Sam ignored it. Pizza had won fair and square and she'd already resolved to set her alarm to wake her up. She needed the run as it was anyway.

"Sounds like someone is getting a bit insubordinate. I have ways to deal with that," he lightly threatened and for a split second, Sam's mind wasn't on dinner. It was a lame come on but humorous nonetheless. She chuckled.

"If you're trying to seduce me into phone sex…" A knock on her door interrupted her statement. She already knew she was going to be disappointed because there was no way Domino's had started a psychic ordering service, so she sighed into the phone. Surely if it had been a scientist about to blow up the base, they would have called first. "Hold on."

Sam pulled open her door with exasperation only to find one General Jack O'Neill standing on her doorstep, in full service dress, holding a pizza.

"Have I told you that I love you?" she said as she set aside her phone and accepted the still hot food from his hands. It probably had pepperoni and that only served to make her even more deliriously thrilled that he was standing there.

"You _are_ talking to me right?"

Leaning forward she planted a kiss on his lips. "Of course."

"Just checking. You did seem very excited about that pizza," he commented, stepping inside.

"I _am_ very excited about this pizza," Sam assured him. Opening the top she inhaled the rich aroma of the garlic bread crust. "And I promise to show you exactly how excited once we finish dinner."

Jack grinned. "Just tell me you have beer."

"Oh definitely."

He kicked off his shoes and she took a second to watch him shrug off his jacket. She was definitely not getting up at five to go running, and as far as she was concerned, she was perfectly all right with that. What was half a pound anyway? Sam slipped away to grab a couple of cold ones from her fridge along with some paper plates. The universe still owed her, but given the man standing in her living room right at the moment, it was doing a damn fine job of paying up its tab.


End file.
